New Deal art
- Art produced with funding
from the United States government during the Great Depression
of the 1930s and 1940s.

Herbert Hoover was president when
the stock market crashed in October of 1929. Although he had a
reputation for humanitarianism, Hoover refused to take bold actions
as the U.S. economy headed for the bottom. In the 1932 election,
Americans had become so disappointed in Hoover's inaction that
a majority voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had pledged "a
new deal for the American people." Roosevelt's New Deal was
comprised of numerous federal programs and policies — some call them
an "alphabet soup" for their myriad acronyms — intended
to promote economic recovery and social reform. The most pressing need was to put
Americans back to work, and some funds went specifically to assist
artists, dramatists, musicians, and writers.

Illustrating the context of New Deal art is this painting by Ashcan artist John Sloan. It depicts a New York City street scene at the time New Deal art programs were getting under way.

John Sloan (American, 1871-1951), 14th Street at 6th Avenue, c. 1935, oil on woodpanel, US General Services Administration, thanks to Charles Terrill and his family. Sloan placed signs — blue eagle in a red frame — supporting the NRA (a federal program that fixed prices) under the "SHOES" sign, and another in the windshield of a parked car. Sloan may have portrayed himself in the foreground wearing a brown cap.

In order to channel subsidies
to struggling artists, the federal government employed them through
several bureaucracies:

The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) in the Civil Works Administration
(CWA) was the first of these agencies. It spent $1,034,754 hiring
more than 3,700 artists for five months in the winter of 1933-34
to produce 6,800 easelpaintings, 6,500 sculptures,
2,600 print designs,
and about 400 murals.

The
Section of Painting and Sculpture (SPS) paid artists to produce
more than 108,000 easel paintings, 17,000 sculptures, 11,000 print
designs, and 2,500 murals. FAP artists are especially credited
with their revival of printmaking,
including the development of silkscreentechniques for mass-producing
posters. SPS artists
had a particularly public impact with the murals they painted
in post offices and other government buildings across the country.
In addition SPS operated over 100 Community Art Centers, and compiled
a 20,000 piece Index of American
Design. Its artists also produced models, photographs,
and many other objects.

The Works Progress Administration
(WPA) was created in 1935. Its Federal Arts Project (FAP), also
started that year, hired 5,000 artists to create 108,000 easel
paintings, 17,700 sculptures, 11,200 print designs, and 2,500
murals.

The Resettlement Administration
(RA) later became the Farm Security Administration (FSA) — both
in the Agriculture Department — hired photographers to document
life in rural America. Together these two projects produced 122,000
black-and-white negatives, 66,000 black-and-white photographic
prints, and about 650 color transparencies.
Other agencies including the WPA, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics,
the Rural Electrification Administration, and the Civilian Conservation
Corps sponsored smaller photographic projects. Participating photographers included:
Walker Evans (1903-1975), Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), Russell
Lee, and Ben Shahn (1898-1969).

None of the New Deal programs
succeeded in convincing the representatives of the American people
that federal art patronage
was such an important activity that it should be considered as
a proper function of government, and therefore be continued. All
New Deal art programs died with the arrival of World War II. In
the prosperity that followed the war, the objective of supporting
artists during a crisis could not be maintained. Not until the
arrival of the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the flourishing of various
public art programs have U.S.
government monies funded artists' works, though not to the degree
that the New Deal programs did.

Among the thousands of painters,
printmakers, and sculptors who participated in one or more of
the New Deal art programs were:

Peter Blume (1906-1992)
"We, as artists, must take our place in this crisis on the
side of growth and civilization against barbarism and reaction,
and help to create a better social order." Peter Blume,
The Artist Must Choose, 1938.